Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hannah Pena. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hannah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I’m the kind of person who not only always has a plan, but always follows that plan to a T.

Five years ago, my plan was to graduate undergrad, go to law school, become a lawyer, and change the world. No ifs, ands, or buts about it….

BUT, then I got to law school and realized a semester in that I’d made a mistake. So I decided–me, the girl who always had a 4.0, did extra credit anyway, and never missed a day of class nearly my entire life from Kindergarten on–to drop out of law school.

That was risk #1.

After I dropped out, I didn’t have a back-up plan. I spent the next 2 years wandering aimlessly in a full-time job I needed just to cover the bills and thinking that was all my life was going to amount to. At least it was safe, right? Steady, yeah? Predictable.

Then the pandemic hit.

I was lucky enough to keep the job I had at the time while working remotely from home, but it gave me a taste of what my life could be like if I always worked from home…if I always just had myself as a supervisor, but I brushed it off because I didn’t have an entrepreneurial bone in my body (so I thought). As a way to pass time, I began posting more and more on my Instagram page–workouts at first, then more of a deep dive into why we as society are so obsessed with looks and bodies when there are so many more interesting things out there. Then…I got a message that quite literally changed the trajectory of my life and my career.

An old law school colleague had decided to start her own business and she needed help with marketing: could I do it?

I said yes.

That was risk #2.

I started planning and creating social media content for her and realized how much I loved it…and I was pretty good at it too. I helped grow her page and soon enough, she had recommended me to more businesses and I started getting other clients. Then the unthinkable happened: I had enough clients to justify quitting my job and taking my own business full-time. When I say I kind of fell into entrepreneurship and marketing…I mean it. It came out of nowhere and slapped me in the face but it was a welcome slap.

In October 2021, I quit my job and pursued my social media business full-time: both as a social media manager & copywriter, and as a content creator myself for my own page.

That was risk #3. The risk I’m still living with a year later!

Hannah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Like I mentioned before, I unexpectedly fell into marketing and social media. But, when I look back through my life thus far, it really doesn’t come as a surprise. I’ve always been a creative, artistic, passionate, and driven person. I’ve always had a way with words and an eye for what looks good. At the end of the day, that is what I help my clients with the most: finding the perfect way to speak to their audience, through written and visual media.

While I love working with my clients and building their brands, I am most proud of the community I’ve cultivated within my own brand and Instagram page. I struggled with body image issues and disordered eating habits for many of my teen and young adult years, and recently have started opening up more about this topic, as well as practicing body neutrality and busting body stereotypes on social media. My followers are more like my friends, and they’re all just as headstrong and passionate about showing up unapologetically in their own bodies as I am. We work through all the complicated feelings surrounding this together. My page has become a safe space for women to gather and know they’re cheered on by thousands of others, and I’m just thankful I can take part in a little slice of that. I know I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

There are 2 intertwined concepts that I had to unlearn:

1.) That you have to have a degree in something in order to be successful.
2.) That you have to work in the area in which you have your degree.

Don’t get me wrong, OBVIOUSLY some careers you need to have a specialized degree for (i.e. doctor, lawyer, etc.). But I have my degrees in Political Science and Criminal Justice….and I’m working in social media, marketing, & writing. For the first few months of working my marketing business, I felt like a failure for the SOLE REASON that I wasn’t “using” my Criminal Justice Masters degree that I had completed a few months prior.

Think of how ridiculous that is: even though I was successfully making a full-time income with a new career I loved, I felt like I had failed.

That feeling of failure was sandwiched between not using the degrees I had and feeling like I needed to get a new degree to be taken seriously.

It took me MONTHS to get over this and quite frankly, I still have moments of Imposter Syndrome. At the end of the day, there are thousands, if not MILLIONS of people who are successful in their lives and careers and either don’t have a degree at all or have a degree that was in something completely different. That degree isn’t wasted–every piece of knowledge you’ve learned from it is applicable somewhere, I promise you. Likewise, if you feel you need to get a degree before you start trying something new–I’m of the firm belief now that real-world, real-life experience is a 1:2 ratio for education. For every 1 year of real, gritty, hands-on experience, you’ve basically learned an equivalent of 2 years in formal education.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I want to preface this by saying it took me 2 years to build my audience to over 10,000. It didn’t happen overnight and it’s rare that it does!

I built my audience by being myself. I know that sounds silly and cheesy, but it’s true. And by being true to myself in whatever phase I was in–because you develop as a person every year, every month, heck, even every day. There are a lot of accounts out there that get stuck because they’re not being honest with how they’re evolving, as a person or as a business.

Of course, I did have some strategy in there too, like using trending sounds early on or using the sound in an unexpected way separate from what was trending, but by and large, the biggest or “most viral” pieces of content that drew in more followers were pieces of content that I had decided to create spur of the moment, because I wanted to talk about what was on my mind. When I first started posting to my page regularly in 2020, I was posting 3x/day. Morning, noon, and night. And you know what that yielded? Burnout. Fake filler posts. Filtered pictures. And not much else.

My biggest piece of advice for those just starting to build their social media presence is to tune out the noise. It can be so easy to want to post what everyone else is posting, but you and I both know you’d be doing yourself a disservice. Don’t compare your content or business to others in your niche. They’re not you.

Oh, and have fun. Social media was born out of an outlet for entertainment–so don’t be afraid to have fun with it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://empowherdmarketing.com/
• Instagram: @hannpena
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-pena1895/